National Guard, 1927-79

The long years of strife between the liberal and
conservative
political factions and the existence of private armies led
the
United States to sponsor the National Guard as an
apolitical
institution to assume all military and police functions in
Nicaragua. The marines provided the training, but their
efforts
were complicated by a guerrilla movement led by Augusto
César
Sandino that continued to resist the marines and the
fledgling
National Guard from a stronghold in the mountainous areas
of
northern Nicaragua.

Upon the advent of the United States Good Neighbor
Policy in
1933, the marines withdrew from Nicaragua, but they left
behind
the best-organized, -trained, and -equipped military force
that
the country had ever known. Having reached a strength of
about
3,000 by the mid-1930s, the guard was organized into
company
units, although the Presidential Guard component
approached
battalion size. Expanded to more than 10,000 during the
civil war
of 1978-79, the guard consisted of a reinforced battalion
as its
primary tactical unit, a Presidential Guard battalion, a
mechanized company, an engineer battalion, artillery and
antiaircraft batteries, and one security company in each
of the
country's sixteen departments.

The National Guard's main arms were rifles and machine
guns,
later augmented by antiaircraft guns and mortars.
Nicaragua
declared war on the Axis powers in 1941, immediately after
the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Although Nicaragua was
not
actively involved in World War II, it qualified for United
States
Lend-Lease military aid in exchange for United States base
facilities at Corinto on the Pacific coast. Additional
shipments
of small arms and transportation and communication
equipment
followed, as well as some training and light transport
aircraft.
United States military aid to the National Guard continued
under
the Rio de Janeiro Treaty of Mutual Defense (1947), but
stopped
in 1976 after relations with the administration of
Anastasio
Somoza Debayle (1967-72, 1974-79) worsened. Some United
States
equipment of World War II vintage was also purchased from
other
countries--Staghound armored cars and M4 Sherman medium
tanks
from Israel and F-51 Mustang fighter aircraft from Sweden.

Except for minor frontier skirmishes with Honduras in
1957
over a border dispute, the National Guard was not involved
in any
conflict with its neighbors. In its only mission outside
the
country, one company participated in the peacekeeping
force of
the Organization of American States (OAS) in the Dominican
Republic in 1965. The guard's domestic power, however,
gradually
broadened to embrace not only its original internal
security and
police functions but also control over customs,
telecommunications, port facilities, radio broadcasting,
the
merchant marine, and civil aviation.

Upon the departure of the United States marines in
1933,
General Anastasio Somoza García was selected by the
presidentelect of Nicaragua as first Nicaraguan commander of the
National
Guard. Although initially regarded as a malleable
compromise
candidate, Somoza soon indicated that he would exploit his
position as head of the guard to consolidate power in what
became
the Somoza dynasty
(see The Somoza Era, 1936-79
, ch. 1).
Through
its control of all security, police, and intelligence
functions,
the guard became far more than simply a military
institution.
Command of the National Guard always remained in the hands
of
Somoza family members, and key officers were promoted
mainly on
the basis of personal loyalty to the ruling family. This
loyalty
was reinforced through kickbacks, perquisites, and special
opportunities for personal gain that led to a pervasive
system of
corruption. At the time of Anastasio Somoza Garcia's
assassination in 1956, his oldest son, Luis Somoza
Debayle,
became president and his second son, Anastasio Somoza
Debayle,
took over as commander of the National Guard. After the
death of
Luis Somoza Debayle in 1967, control of the presidency
passed to
Anastasio Somoza Debayle.

The National Guard's close association with the Somoza
family
and its instinct for self-preservation through protection
of the
Somoza dynasty resulted in increasing alienation of large
segments of the Nicaraguan population. This alienation was
exacerbated by repressive measures and ruthless urban
warfare
employed by the guard during the last two years of
fighting that
led to the ouster of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. As a
result, many
Nicaraguans saw the struggle of the FSLN against the
government
as an anti-National Guard crusade as well as an
anti-Somoza
crusade.

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